


years of winter

by leprixx



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: F/M, M/M, Mentions of Violence, The Hale Fire, World War II
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-12-11
Updated: 2012-12-11
Packaged: 2017-11-20 20:51:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,164
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/589529
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/leprixx/pseuds/leprixx
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"Derek", He says, pressing a kiss to the space between his eyes, and the tiny boy wriggles until his face is pressed against Peter's neck.</p>
            </blockquote>





	years of winter

**Author's Note:**

> for you, my darling, i wish a happy birthday and a century of remembered new years. 
> 
> \--
> 
> as for the story; i've based it on the assumption that werewolves age differently than humans, and mixed it up with a story meant for my darling and read by no one else.
> 
> please point out any grammar mistakes.

_rising emerald, i lose my hands in the soft grass,_  
 _and crimson, when i dare a closer look,_  
 _unquiet, when your fingers touch what once belonged to you._  
  
  
  
\- 

Peter doesn't dream about the fire.

Peter doesn't dream.

(Peter wishes he could forget).

Behind his eyelids, a world of flames.

\--

autumn, 1947.

Two years. Peter sighs, lets his grown nails catch on his scalp when he runs fingers through his hair. Beyond the window behind him, through the mirror, he can see his brother smiling as he puts careful hands on the flushed skin of his wife's cheek.

He feels his eyelids burning and looks back to find electric-blue eyes staring back at him.

\--

winter, 1945.

It's funny, how humans fight. Strong and tall and weak and small and fearless and cowards and disciplined, screaming orders and continuing to shoot even when all it does is make Peter stagger, his brother growl, his father flash red eyes.

After they're done, string of corpses behind them, he finds a girl, curled up in rags, hair cropped short and chains around her wrist, broken chair kicked away.

Her eyes flash up, golden, meeting his a beat before a growl, before her scent, before the crash of his brother jumping in front of him to protect, to fight, to tear, to possess.

\--

spring, 1943.

He finds pleasure in war, much to his brothers disgust. He's fascinated by the freedom it brings, running with pack, destroying, fighting, letting the wolf out and satisfying it and his whisper of human conscience with the belief that he's doing something _good_ or accepted, at least, uncondemned - saving a continent, winning a war, destroying the enemy.

At night he lies about sleeping and sits at the edge of the camp, drunk with blood and the wolf that howls and sings between his ears.

\--

summer, 1949.

His brother and his brother's wife have another child, blue eyes flashing like Peter's and cheekbones poking even through the plumpness of his full cheeks. A boy, whose name Peter is left to choose, and whose tiny fingers hold onto his with a despair not unlike the one he felt the first time he was allowed to hold Laura, in all her fragile strength.

"Derek", He says, pressing a kiss to the space between his eyes, and the tiny boy wriggles until his face is pressed against Peter's neck.

\--

1953.

Laura is a force to be reckoned, smile sharp and fists strong. All the curves in her wolf promise an alpha, and her grandfather smiles indulgently, complying to her whims without fault.

Peter stays away, focused on the quiet brightness of Derek, of his white teeth and green eyes, the way he curves his body in affection towards Peter, curling close to his scent, clambering into the warmth and safety of his lap and letting the harmony of their heartbeats and Peter's soft words lull him to sleep.

His brothers watch, lips curled, and his father looks away. Derek's mom frowns, uncertain, but no one does a thing, and Peter breathes deep, breathes Derek in, and closes his own eyes.

\--

1956.

They wander around Scotland, England, Ireland. The land is ripe, but the memories remain, the curse follows, the continent tainted by hate and hunt.

"This is not a place for our children" Talia says, thick hair curling on her neck. There's the ghost of an Argent in the way she holds her shoulders, the attacks growing more dangerous as the full moons morph one in another.

Peter's brothers stay quiet, and his father nods, eyes tracking Laura's movements as she talks all over Derek's timids attempts at telling her of his day.

"America, then." He says at last, already thinking of measuring words, buying toys for his nephew, maybe a dress for his niece.

\--

1959.

America, land of the free. 

They enroll Derek and Laura in a school for the first time, receiving wary glances from the population of the small city in the middle of Louisiana. 

They stay only until Laura and Derek finish the school year, and leave.

\--

1967.

Derek turns eighteen, body stuck at fourteen. Puberty comes right after his first shift, and along comes the change in his scent, the undertone of want and wood and uncertainty. He no longers climbs on Peter's lap, but sits by him, thigh a nudge away, eyes down and face flush with shame, neck bared unconsciously. The message is there, as tangent as it was the day Derek was born and Peter's heart skipped a beat.

His parents look, and Laura makes a wounded sound when she realizes the implications. 

\--

winter, 1969.

Derek kisses him, the day his green eyes turn twenty and his body reaches fifteen; his hands are clumsy where they cling to Peter's forearms, sweaty and trembling when Peter pries them from his skin and away, own heart racing.

"We can't", Peter says, slow, careful, hurting.

Derek inhales, hurt too, the freshness of youth still buzzing through him, eyes big and wet even as he runs away.

Peter leaves the next day.

\--

spring, 1986.

He meets a wolf, sweet and submissive, hair so fair it looks white, hands small and eyes as dark as night.

She tells him she loves him and he murmurs "I know" against the skin of her wrist, merciless. 

He tries to feel something, some sympathy for the beauty that gives herself so easily to him, but he knows that he left all his guilt tucked away in eyes that he hasn't seen in decades, all his love in skin that he dares not think of.

She swallows down a sob and later that night, spreads her legs open for him.

\--

summer, 1999.

He goes home for Derek's fiftieth birthday, and his father dies in the hand of Peter's wife seven hours after holding his third grandchild for the first time.

Laura cries and forces Derek to return her hug, their mother stricken cold behind them, Peter's brothers eyeing him with the same coldness he had seen half a century ago, the one that tore and killed and helped win a war.

They leave the day after, two bodies burnt but only one buried beneath wolfsbane.

\--

autumn, 2005.

The house burns, and so does Peter. 

Death takes his brothers, his brother's wife, his son, two of Derek's younger sisters, Laura's littlest brother and the woman who carried his younger brother's first child inside her womb.

\--

winter, 2012.

Peter takes his first step in six years. Carves revenge into a deer, breathes emptiness and death in a house once filled with golden memories, spills Laura's blood until he feels the alpha singing in his veins.

\--

spring, 2012. 

He finds a boy who smells of sickness and empty heroism and bites him, remembering Laura as she struggled under him, the second-hand scent of Derek still thick in his lungs even as he tears into the boy and then away, wolf confused and hurt and yearning.

As spring ends, he finds Derek again.


End file.
